Quotes by Phil Collins

• In 1977 we played America and Europe three times, and Japan - my marriage suffered as a result. My then wife took the kids to Canada to be near her parents.
• In Genesis we saw ourselves as song-writers. After Peter Gabriel left I was the first to say: 'It's OK - we can just do instrumentals.'
• You know, a song is like a kid. You bring it up. And sometimes something you thought was going to be fantastic, by the time it's finished, is a bit of a disappointment.
• No seriously... when there's families, you tend to go back to your room after the gig rather than go for a drink with the other guys. But there's always someone who's got something going, like the tour manager.
• Often there's a BA crew, because half the time we stay at the same hotels, especially in Australia. I can remember spending quite a lot of time with crews around the pool there. They always make themselves known to us.
• On the day of the show, I sit down with someone that speaks very good English and someone who speaks the local language very well and work out what I'm going to say.
• When we're touring America or Europe, we use our own plane and a great advantage of that is it cuts out an awful lot of time checking in. You literally drive up to the plane, get on and then drive off at the other end.
• When I go on Japanese Airlines, I really love it because I like Japanese food.
• We stayed in some pretty shabby places in Europe.
• 'Urban Renewal' was sweet because I've been - unfairly, I would say - plonked in the middle of the road because of a handful of songs. It came at a good time for me, because you do take a bit of a browbeating and, as you get older, you become better at accepting it and realizing why it happens.
• To be honest, producing records interests me less at the moment and I really don't want to get involved in album projects that are going to take up a lot of time.
• It's always been easy with Mark, he's a rock fan and we speak the same language. He's a big Beatles fan too. We worked a lot via CLI calls, though only meeting up once every couple of months.
• The day Tarzan opened in London, I sat in a hotel room and discussed the project in detail.
• Many of the articles printed over the last few months have ended up painting a picture of me that is more than a little distorted.
• I've spent the last year and a half going through a very public separation, hiding in hotel lobbies.
• If Miles Davis hadn't died it would have been interesting to do an album with him, but there wasn't much else that would have got me into the studio... although Herbie Hancock has just been in touch about doing something and that would be an interesting combination.
• The world is in your hands, now use it.
• I am stopping so I can be a full-time father to my two young sons on a daily basis.
• Each thing leapfrogs. I do a Genesis project - like now, we're just finishing off an album - and then by the time the album is doing its thing, I could do nothing or I could do a film.
• Beyond a certain point, the music isn't mine anymore. It's yours.
• I don't really belong to that world and I don't think anyone's going to miss me. I'm much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely.
• I can't remember much about the early flights, except that it was ages before we got into First Class.
• I usually hang around the room listening to a bit of last night's show. If there's one available, I go to the steam room every day for my voice. I spend half an hour there and then I eat, because I can't eat later than four o'clock. Then I go for a soundcheck. That's my day.
• I'm just trying to do things that are interesting for me.
• I'm not trying necessarily to become a movie star; that wouldn't be bad but that's not the aim. I'm just trying to do interesting things and go into areas where I've not been before.
• I'm writing new songs for a Broadway version of Tarzan, which is very interesting. I think what I learned from the Brother Bear score side of things, I've brought into the new Tarzan songs. Thinking outside just guitar, bass, drums and keyboards.
• And I would like to marry and have more children. I would like to try and do it right.
• Another time, we had three days off in Australia, so we went out of our way to fly to Ayres Rock.
• I'm usually going to make a record, finish a record, start a record or start a tour or between tours.
• I know it shouldn't make a difference, but crossing the dateline, we weren't sure what day it was - it was very strange. Now, I seem to cope with it better.